THE designer who attacked the "Wimpeyfication" of Britain's housing is to speak at a property conference about creating balanced communities.
Fashion guru Wayne Hemingway is to give a speech at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) at St James's Park, in Newcastle, tomorrow.
Mr Hemingway is best known as the co-founder of the Red or Dead label, which he sold several years ago to concentrate on architecture, interiors and product design.
He became involved in housing when property firm George Wimpey City challenged the designer to come up with ideas after Mr Hemingway launched a scathing attack on modern housing.
As a result, he helped design a 700-home development on Staiths South Bank, in Gateshead.
Tomorrow, he will talk about how to create balanced communities, especially in areas such as Tyneside, which is known for social polarisation, where affluent areas sit next to areas of comparative deprivation, but the two groups have little in common.
Research carried out for the RICS shows an increase in the popularity of "gated communities", where fear of crime has led to high walls and security cameras.
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